Banning pot terms is reefer madness

Because you'd have to be puffing on something pretty strong to pass the goofy ordinance they did this week — one that tells medical marijuana businesses they can't use words like "medical" and "marijuana" in their business names.

First of all, I should mention the tiny little detail that medical marijuana isn't even legal in this state. But Altamonteans don't care about that. They want to regulate any possible medical-pot businesses that might crop up if the state ever does legalize it.

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And in the mind of the Altamonte council and their crack legal team, that means banning words like "medical," "marijuana," "wacky tabacky," "hashish," "weed," "herb" and "demp."

I'll be honest: I haven't the foggiest idea what "demp" is.

I presume they meant "hemp" — and that nobody actually proofread the ordinance.

That would be the most logical explanation for this entire episode — because, generally, government can't ban words. (And even if you could, why on earth would you ban "medical"?)

Altamonte should revisit this ... unless the city also wants to ban phrases like "free speech" and "First Amendment."

Convention madness

At 6.6 million square feet, the Pentagon is one of the largest buildings in the United States.

It is gargantuan — and yet, still smaller than the Orange County Convention Center.

The convention center, which sits unused for much of the year, is 7 million square feet.

Taxpayers still haven't finished paying off $2 billion worth of debt incurred from its last expansion.

But as the Sentinel reported this week, county officials want to pour even more tax dollars into making the center even bigger.

More meeting space. More parking. More, more, more.

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This is the never-ending game of never-enough.

It is funded by taxpayers and encouraged by a cottage industry of consultants who run from one city to another telling Orlando, Chicago, Las Vegas and New Orleans to each look at the other guy and make sure you catch up.

Orlando loves to point at Las Vegas and say Central Florida must spend more on its convention center and more on tourism advertising to compete.

Yet when anyone notes that Las Vegas also uses hotel taxes for things like roads and police — to pay for services that tourists need — Orlando leaders suddenly declare that Las Vegas shouldn't be emulated.

If county commissioners are prudent watchdogs, they will ask pointed questions about when this center will ever be big enough — and support legislative efforts to allow hotel taxes to be spent in other ways.

But if history is any indication, they will not.

Holy graffiti!

Speaking of tourism, last week's Sentinel had a strange little story about the Holy Land Experience deciding to paint a mural — with an angel, scroll and blue sky — on the giant wall around its parking lot.

There's just one problem: It's not Holy Land's wall. It's yours, or rather, taxpayers', since the Florida Department of Transportation built the wall at the interchange at Conroy Road and Interstate 4.

Holy Land didn't bother to ask the DOT for permission before it started painting.

Now you probably know that you can't just up and decide to paint public property. In fact, you can get arrested for it.

But what makes this situation so odd is that, unlike you, Holy Land doesn't even help pay for public property in the first place. (Sure, the place looks like a theme park. And former Property Appraiser Bill Donegan said it should be taxed like one. But Holy Land — which charges $50 for adult admission — always argued it was more religious in nature and convinced the Legislature and former Gov. Jeb Bush to give it a special, tax-exempt status.)

The DOT isn't sure what to do about the unauthorized mural. And frankly, I'm not sure I see much point in ordering the park to unpaint it.

But I do see value in accountability. And if Holy Land wants special rights to taxpayer property, it should start paying taxes.